


The Tests of Today

by mainstreamFragment



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Siren, post S2e3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mainstreamFragment/pseuds/mainstreamFragment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kieren has just kissed Simon after saving Freddy and Haley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tests of Today

**Author's Note:**

  * For [animeHrmIne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeHrmIne/gifts).



> Written for a prompt submitted by the wonderful animeHrmIne

Kieren was leaning into the kiss before he realized what he was even doing, and immediately jerked back as soon as he _did_ realize. It had been a mistake; his emotions had gotten the better of him after seeing the way Gary had treated Freddy—how Gary had wanted to put a bullet between Freddy’s eyes before he even gave Kieren the chance to give Freddy his medicine.

As Gary drove away with Freddy in the back of his truck, Kieren had been planning on walking home. Hell, he _had_ been walking home, when he started thinking. At the time, his mind had been flooded with everything Simon had said to him. At the fence, the party, and the surgery. But the thoughts were taken over by memories of all the subtle touches and the closed distances. The loaded meanings. Kieren hadn’t thought about it, really; he just started running as quickly as he could, his limbs still awkwardly stiff from his time in the ground. And he hadn’t thought about where he was running. He trusted his instincts and let them lead him where they may.

And they had led him to Amy’s house. But he wasn’t here to talk to her, and he didn’t even realize he wasn’t until he was knocking on the door. As he turned to face Simon, he realized what he was about to do, but in the moment, it felt right. And so he kissed Simon; Simon sure as hell kissed back. But it was wrong. Amy trusted him, and he had gone against that and kissed the man she was in love with anyway.

He gawked at Simon’s mouth as the realization set in that he had just made a huge mistake. Simon’s eyebrows were furrowed together and his eyes were practically asking Kieren what was wrong. Kieren noticed Simon reaching out with one hand, and quickly dodged around it and toward the door.

“I shouldn’t have,” he said breathlessly as he half-jogged out the door.

“Kieren, wait!” Simon shouted from behind him.

All of Kieren’s senses felt fuzzy and muted, but he realized he heard the door shut, and within seconds, Simon had caught up to him and was standing in front of him.

“Kieren, what’s wrong?”

Simon didn’t touch Kieren, though he was reaching out like he _wanted_ to touch him.

“Like I said outside the surgery: Amy thinks you’re going to marry her. I’m not going to hurt her—or enable you to hurt her—like this.” He pushed around Simon as he felt his chest tightening. Funny how you didn’t need a beating heart to feel that dreadful pain, like someone was crushing your ribs from the inside out.

Kieren half-expected Simon to grab his arm and stop him as he brushed past, but he didn’t. Instead, Simon turned to fall into step beside Kieren. “It’s like _I_ said: I’m not leading her on. I told her to stop saying we were getting married, but she insisted. She knows I don’t love her that way, Kieren.”

Part of Kieren wanted to believe Simon. After all, Amy _had_ joked that _they_ were getting married before she left Roarton. But how could he possibly know Simon was telling the truth. It wasn’t like he had taken the time to ask Amy if he could kiss the man she had been calling her fiancé. Kieren slowed down his pace a bit as he felt less and less like trying to escape from Simon. “Okay then, why do you hug her and all that business all the time?”

“Like I told you earlier, Amy needs to know she’s loved.” Simon’s voice sounded less frantic, and was quieter than it had been. “We’ve talked, okay? She knows that I’m not going to do…anything more. She just needs someone to hold her and touch her and let her know she’s not alone.”

Kieren had no idea how to reply, so he just kept walking.

Simon followed beside him for a minute or so before he spoke up again, his voice nearly a whisper. “We all need that sometimes.”

Kieren stopped when he realized what Simon had said. He sounded so sincere, even more so than usual. Simon had his hands tucked into his jacket, and he wasn’t even looking up at Kieren. His chin was resting against his chest and his eyes were downcast like they were scrutinizing something on the ground. Kieren hadn’t the slightest idea of what he could say. He eventually settled for, “Yeah, I guess we do.”

Simon’s eyes drifted up to meet his gaze. His mouth was curved up into a tiny smirk, but his eyebrows betrayed the insincerity of the smirk. “Why did you kiss me, Kieren?”

Kieren immediately opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a hoarse rasp of air. “I-I don’t know. It felt right at the time.”

“Already regretting it?” Simon almost sounded defeated, like he had just had the air knocked out of him.

_I’m still not convinced you’re not leading us both on_ , seemed like it would be the wrong way to answer that. “Not regretting, no. But Amy—”

Simon stepped closer to him, mere inches separating them. “I swear on the Prophet, I’d never hurt either of you intentionally.”

Kieren winced as he heard that name, and something felt off about Simon tacking on ‘intentionally’ at the end. “If we…did anything, Amy would be hurt. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, Simon.”

“Kieren, she already knows, okay? She knew I favored lads months okay; why else do you think she was so passionate about getting us to meet?”

Kieren’s eyelids twitched in question as he heard Simon’s last question. “I don’t know, so you could convert me just like you converted her?” Kieren realized that sounded far more accusatory than he intended.

Simon took a step back, his head shaking as he looked away from Kieren. “I’m not the bad guy here, Kieren.” Each of the words sounded forced, Simon putting a bit more space between them than he usually did.

“But you are trying to convert me?”

“Christ, no! For fuck’s sake, Kieren. Sure, I’d love to teach you to not hate yourself and maybe even help you understand what a blessing this can be if you stop letting the living oppress you, but that has nothing to do with it!”

Kieren opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, Simon had started talking again.

“I like you, Kieren. I’m interested in you, and I don’t want to be ‘Simon, the disciple’ to you!” He stopped long enough for a sigh to slip out. When he started talking again, his voice was barely above a whisper. He looked up slowly toward Kieren. “I just want to be ‘Simon’, okay?”

Now that Simon was quiet long enough for Kieren to actually say something, he was left speechless. He kept opening his mouth, hoping the words would come to him, but he inevitably closed his mouth before opening it again a second or two later. He didn’t know if he _did_ want to be with Simon. It would make sense if he had just run to Simon because he was the only guy within a hundred miles that Kieren even _thought_ he could get away with kissing. And Simon _was_ right, after all. Sometimes, the intimacy was just a matter of needing _anyone_ to make you feel like they actually cared. So maybe that’s what this all was? Maybe he was just really lonely and getting sick of living in a world where he had to fucking pretend that every single shitty thing was okay.

And Kieren knew he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t lonely. His loneliness had led to his suicide, and he had been lonely since the Rising. Sure, having his friends and family helped a little, but it didn’t change the fact that Kieren knew he was the type of person who wanted companionship. And going so long without any of it was torture. So maybe this all _was_ just a matter of convenience; just letting off some steam after having his life threatened again.

But if the way he felt when he saw how Simon was looking at him was anything to go by, he was lying to himself. He was interested in Simon too. Kieren pulled his lower lip between his teeth as he stepped toward Simon. Simon’s eyes lit up, his eyebrows raised in question, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, like they wanted to slide into a smile. Kieren would be lying if he said he didn’t want to kiss Simon again, but instead of satisfying that urge, he took Simon’s hand, their fingers weaving together.

Simon’s face contorted with an unspoken question, but it was obvious enough what he was wondering.

“We’re talking to Amy, okay? She was in my life first.” The ‘ _and I trust her more_ ’ was left unspoken. Kieren had a creeping suspicion that wasn’t the type of thing Simon would be happy hearing.

“Fair enough,” Simon said beside him, gently squeezing Kieren’s hand as the two started walking back toward the house. When they rounded the corner and the house was back in sight, Simon loosened his grip until Kieren pulled his own hand away.

“So what are you planning on telling her?” Simon asked.

Kieren shrugged before pushing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know. Might ask her if she’s tired of you yet.” Kieren turned his head toward Simon, hoping the joke wasn’t lost on him, and was happy to see Simon’s mouth curled into a large smile.

“It might be best if I wait here; let her be brutally honest about me.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a bad plan.”

Kieren nodded as Simon slowed to a stop. “See you in a bit, I suppose.” Simon nodded at him and his mouth pursed in acknowledgment. Kieren knocked on the door and waited for Amy’s response.

He heard an animated “come in” from behind the door, and twisted the door knob before pushing the door open. Amy was sitting on the couch nearest the entrance. She must have moved after she heard the two of them storming out of the house.

“What’cha been up to?” Amy asked, a bit of doubt seeping into her tone.

“I…” Kieren stopped to clear his throat, hoping to make the lump forming there go away. “I was wondering…How exactly do you feel about Simon?”

“Well, I love him, dum dum.”

“Okay, but how? I mean, what _type_ of love?” he asked as he walked toward her to sit across from her.

“The ‘friends that are too close’ sort of way, I suppose.” Her tone suggested she was joking, being light and bouncy, but her face seemed to suggest something else.

“Amy, if you don’t want…if you don’t want _us_ to do anything, I won’t.” He pushed every bit of sincerity he could into what he was saying.

“I’d never reject doing anything with you,” she jested.

“I mean me and—”  

She shook her head and a quiet chuckle escaped from her. “Simon. I know. Kieren, yeah, I love him, but he will never love me how I deserve. And a woman like me has her options,” she joked, clearly trying to make light of the situation.

Kieren went to respond, but she cut in again.

“Look, dum dum, he’s asked about you before. I wanted you two to meet for a reason.”

“So I guess our wedding’s still off, then?”

“I suppose so. Now you two go out and go on a proper date.”

Kieren smiled at Amy’s light-heartedness. He was surprised how easy this was. “This late at night? I’m not sure there’s anywhere we could go.”

“Sure there is! Nothing says ‘romance’ like staring up at the stars from your grave,” Amy said as she pushed herself up off the couch and extended her hands forward, offering them to help pull Kieren up out of the chair.

“Hardly,” he jested. He wrapped his arms around Amy and pulled her into a close hug. “Thank you so much, Amy. For everything.”

“Anything for my first husband.” She rubbed her hand in a small circle on Kieren’s back before pulling out of the hug. “Now go get him!” she chimed with a wink.

A quick chuckle escaped Kieren before he walked to the door. When he pulled it open, he saw Simon sitting on the front step outside.

“Be back by midnight, kiddies!” Amy shouted as she walked back to her bedroom.

Simon turned to look up at him, a questioning look on his face. “So?”

Kieren simply nodded. Simon smiled as he stood up in front of Kieren.

“Am I allowed to at least hug you now?” Simon asked.

Kieren nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

Simon’s smile grew even larger as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Kieren. Kieren let his arms fall around Simon and clasped his hands together at the small of Simon’s back. This really did feel nice. He felt Simon plant a quick kiss in his hair before he pulled away.

“So where do we go from here?” Simon asked after stepping back from Kieren.

“Amy suggested we stargaze from the cemetery,” Kieren answered without much thought.

“That’s not what I meant, but we can do that.”

“Oh—”

“I meant…us. Are we going to see where things take us or…?” Simon asked, the doubt obvious in the way he never finished his question.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. That sounds good.” As he said it, Kieren felt his mouth growing into a smile.

Simon smiled back at him before reaching forward and brushing his fingers against Kieren’s, as if silently asking if it was okay to hold his hand. Kieren grabbed Simon’s hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze before he started walking.

“So stargazing it is?” Simon asked quietly.

“Unless you want to do something else?”

“No, that sounds great,” he answered, stepping in closer to Kieren and gently bumping his shoulder against him. Kieren nodded, and then the two fell into a silence. As they walked, Kieren could tell Simon was tensing up beside him, but wasn’t sure why. Despite having kissed him earlier, they weren’t exactly close enough for Kieren to just ask what was wrong. Simon evidently noticed Kieren looking over at him, because he let out a quiet sigh through his nose.

“Why’d you kiss me earlier?” Simon’s voice was a mere whisper.

There was no good way to answer him without telling the full story. “Freddy: he was stuck in a storage unit with Haley. He missed his dose and was turning rabid. Gary somehow heard about it and called my house for Jemm, my sister who was in the H.V.F., and I showed up and he was trying to just up and kill Freddy. And then he threatened to shoot me for standing up for him.” He paused long enough to look back over toward Simon, who just nodded at him. It felt to Kieren like a prompt to continue. “As I was walking away, I realized you were right—in the cemetery, when we first met. Some people have turned killing us into a sport, a bloody game of ‘who killed the most zomb’—sorry, ‘ _Redeemed_.’ And it pissed me off, and I just…I just wanted to kiss you. I thought you were an attractive bloke _before_ , but my emotions just got out of hand, and it just sort of happened.”

Simon looked over at him, his eyes heavy with sympathy. “Sorry you had to go through that. But,” he paused and took a deep breath in. “Just know that you don’t have to feel obligated, yeah? Just because you kissed me then doesn’t mean…I don’t know—it doesn’t mean we have to make this a thing. If you don’t want, I mean.”

Kieren smiled at Simon, trying to look as cheerful as he could. “I _want_ to try, Simon. I’ll be the first tell you if that changes.”

Simon huffed a bit of air through his nose in quiet laughter and squeezed Kieren’s hand. “Sounds good,” he said, his tone significantly lighter than it had been.

They walked for about five minutes in a comfortable silence before Simon spoke up again. “Kieren, I know we have differences of opinions—on a few things, but…” He sighed as he searched for the right words. “I’ll try, okay?”

Kieren nodded. He wanted to say he would try too. But with how radical Simon was compared to him, he knew he couldn’t make that promise. But he could promise to at least be more open-minded. “And I’ll try my best to understand.”

Kieren hadn’t realized Simon had stopped, but was pulled back gently toward him. He had turned as he moved back toward Simon, and was standing no more than an inch from him.

“And that’s all I can ask,” Simon whispered over Kieren’s lips before closing the remaining distance between them.

**Author's Note:**

> Considering I watched all six currently-released episodes of In The Flesh between 2:00 am and 9:30 am of the same morning, I'm not super confident in the characterizations and dialogue styles being spot-on, so I apologize if any of them seem "off".


End file.
